In the main part of the house, I am struggling to come up with a way to put in a wood stove or even a pellet stove in my living room. As a kid, we always had a wood stove in this room. The wood stove was connected to a chimney that also had our oil furnace and oil hot water heater connected to. Just one flu. When we were burning wood, the furnace would barely ever come on. Which meant that only the oil hot water heater and the wood stove were really using the chimney. Over the years, my dad had a few chimney fires, but nothing that turned out bad. When I took over the house, we continued to use it, and I'd clean the chimney every year. Every couple of weeks I'd let the fire roar to clean any creosote up. The bottom floor of our house is a granite foundation, and adding a new chimney internally is out of the question. My options are to use the one existing chimney, or buy a pellet stove and remove a window and use that for a double walled pipe. My wife does not want to lose the window. Personally I would much rather put in a wood stove. Unfortunately, I'm a concerned about putting a new wood stove on the existing chimney which would make it out of code.
I don't understand the way you explained it why you can't run a stainless chimney up through the interior of the house?
Is there any way to vent the oil furnace somewhere else? I took the chimney down on the front of the house that the oil furnace vented into. When I resided the house and did a new roof I decided I wanted the chimney gone for looks. We added a power vent. With a power vent you can run your chimney from your furnace a good ways and the power vent will go just before it vents out the house.
Two problems here, 1st I'd have to bore through the granite to put in a power vent. Second the pipe would have to run go 180 degree around the furnace to vent out. I can try to get a couple pictures of my furnace room. We don't have a basement. Our house is built on a slab.
My first idea would be to put a power vent on the water heater and on the oil furnace so you could use the chimney for the wood stove/pellet stove. If you choose a wood stove you should put a SS liner in the chimney. All three of these will be pricey but you will get a good ROI with a woodstove
Once I upload the photo's you'll understand why I cannot put a power vent on the furnace and water heater. Just curious, why would you put an SS liner up a good chimney?
I did it for a piece of mind. I was able to insulate the stainless liner and it gives a better path for the flue gasses to exit.
If the chimney is big enough for two 6 inch liners, you could dedicate one to the wood stove and one to the oil burner. Some older homes have enormous chimneys. I'm a bit confused by your original post, do you have two oil burning appliances, one for heat and one for hot water?
I know the cat stoves like my Fireview require a 6" flue and then the annular space is filled with vermiculite insulation to keep the heat in as the heat is what makes the draft pull. My flue was not lined. It was just flue block. No terra cotta liner. Many old homes like yours were just brick chimneys and the mortar shrinks away and lets smoke come into the house
So you are venting three appliances in one flue of the existing chimney, the woodstove, the oil furnace and the oil hot water heater. OK so you can't power vent through the granite. How about one liner, for the wood stove and two power vents one for each oil burner in the existing chimney. I believe power vents are much smaller maybe 3 or 4 inch. Maybe the oil burning appliances can share a power vent?...I don't know and I am no expert, sounds like you need one though.
To answer your question in the title of your thread. No. You shouldn't do it. You can come up with another way. Do it all right so everyone, including your insurance company, is happy.
Well, a few things remain unclear to me. Do you have two oil furnaces on the first floor of this home, one for heat, the other for hot water? And they both connect to the same chimney? And a woodstove too was ducted in to this same chimney? All on the first floor slab? Pictures needed, badly And I also think I understand the walls of this home to be granite, not easy to pass through with any pellet exhaust or wood stove piping?
My power vent for my oil boiler is six inch. I don't think they can be any smaller. Obviously a pellet stove vent is smaller. 3 or 4 inch.
We drill concrete with rebar every day. Just need the right drill. And you can rent them There are companies that will drill it for you also
